NEW DELHI, July 15 -- The Delhi High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on activist Medha Patkar's plea against her punishment in a defamation case filed by Delhi L-G V K Saxena.
Justice Shalinder Kaur allowed the parties to file written submissions by July 18.
Saxena filed the case 23 years ago when he was heading an NGO in Gujarat.
While Patkar was represented by senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, advocate Gajinder Kumar argued on behalf of Saxena.
The 70-year-old Narmada Bachao Andolan leader challenged the April 2 sessions court order upholding her conviction handed out by a magisterial court in the case.
The sessions court, which upheld Patkar's conviction in the case, released her on "probation of good conduct"on furnishing a probation bond of Rs 25,000 on April 8 and imposed a precondition on her of depositing Rs 1 lakh as fine.
The high court, in an interim order, suspended the sentence and granted her bail on a personal bond of Rs 25,000. Probation is a method of non-institutional treatment of offenders and a conditional suspension of sentence in which the offender, after conviction, is released on bond of good behaviour instead of being sent to prison.
The magisterial court on July 1, 2024 sentenced Patkar to five months of simple imprisonment and slapped a Rs 10 lakh fine after finding her guilty under Section 500 (defamation) of the IPC.
Saxena filed the case as president of the National Council of Civil Liberties over Patkar's defamatory press release on November 24, 2000. A court found her statements defamatory and aimed at harming his image. Her appeal was dismissed, and the conviction in the defamation case upheld.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.